"I have a little girl," Rodney said. "Her mother named her "Jill". She wouldn't let me see the baby and laughed at me when I offered to marry her. You're not shocked."
"It isn't easy to shock me," Lisa told him.
"She said she was going to raise the baby herself." He fidgeted some more. "It turns out Marlene was already married. Her husband tried, but ... some time ago, her neighbors called the police. The police found Jill alone in their apartment. Her husband was on a trucking run and Marlene decided she wanted to go out. She figured Jill would be fine until she got home. They took Jill from Marlene, and her husband worked with my parents to find a better place for Jill."
"I am so sorry," Lisa said. "Do you know where Jill is right now?"
"Yes. My mother called this morning. Jill is now my little sister."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"It would be, yes. Except for ... what do I tell Leslie?" He started wringing his hands again.
"You tell her the truth, Rodney."
"She'll dump me." He looked panicked by the thought.
"If you don't tell her and she finds out from someone else, she will dump you. So what do you have to lose, really?
"Good point."
"Leslie is not unreasonable." Lisa held up a hand and counted on her fingers. "One, Jill has a set of parents now, so you're not asking Leslie to be Jill's mom. Two, it happened before you met Leslie, so you didn't cheat on her. Take Leslie someplace nice and just talk to her."
"Thanks, Lisa." He rooted in the pocket of his coveralls and pulled out his wallet. "I need to get back to work, so ...." He handed her a few bills.
"Rodney, that's too much!" she protested. Rodney smiled.
"That's just what I have right now," he told her. "The ear and the advice are worth far more than that. Thank you, Lisa. Let me know if I can ever help you."
Nobody misses anything in this town. Whatever you did, chances are that someone saw it.
Anne smiled, then gave Harold Kreider a poke.
"Is this new?" she asked. The mayor looked over his shoulder out the picture window, then shrugged.
"She talks to people all the time," he said. "She's a good listener."
"Oh. She's not dating him?"
Harold laughed.
"He's too young for her, I think. She's not dating anyone that I know of."
"And definitely not that one," Abe Wright chimed in. "He's been dating my youngest daughter, Leslie. Hal, you need to send Lisa to college. She'd make an excellent counsellor."
"Bite your tongue, Abe!" George protested from the passthrough. "You really want to do without her pies?"
"I'm sorry, Abe," Anne said, refilling Mr. Wright's coffee cup. "I didn't know he was seeing Leslie and I would so love to see Lisa have a boyfriend!"
"I would have sent her to college," the Mayor told Mr. Wright, "but she wasn't interested. She likes working here and doing her baking."
"And we appreciate it," Anne said, now refilling the Mayor's cup. "Has she ever had a boyfriend, Hal?"
"Quit trying to marry her off! George complained. "Pies, Anne! And order up." He rang the bell and then turned back to the grill. Anne went over to the passthrough and picked up the mayor's usual breakfast of two eggs over easy with toast and bacon.
"Thanks, Anne," Hal smiled. "As for Lisa -- she's gone on some dates, but I don't think she's found the right one yet. She has plenty of time."
Abe elbowed him, laughing.
"She's the last one and she'll always be your baby," he accused. The Mayor laughed with him.
"You're right," he said. "She doesn't live at home, but somehow it's less final than if she was married like her sister. Abe -- speaking of daughters, what did Leslie finally decide to do?"
Abe shook his head and took a sip of coffee for strength.
"You'd think Ella and I would have learned our lessons with Amy," he said. "Leslie is even more strong-willed and stubborn than her sisters. This is how I lost my hair." He gestured to his bald head. "Living in a house full of stubborn women."
"Probably not being twins concentrates the stubbornness in Leslie," Hal smiled. "So she'll be applying to me to be a police officer in a year or two, huh?"
"That she will. Ella begged her to reconsider and go to college to be a teacher like Annie, but Leslie wouldn't hear of it."
"That's above and beyond, Abe," Hal replied. "We've needed both teachers and cops since what happened in April."
"The carnival was a good idea," Anne chimed in as Lisa came back inside. "I'm sure it will help all of us to move on with life."
Overheard at the carnival: The strong man show is actually pretty neat! It wasn't at all what I was expecting. The dog with the matching outfit was the best part!
Fabian gave one final wave and ducked backstage. He smiled to himself -- there had been a lot of very pretty girls in the audience. There was a set of twins that looked particularly nice -- short brown hair and green eyes. One twin had a bob haircut while the other's hair was more daring and edgy. There had also been a gang of nurses he remembered from the emergency room the night before, and they really showed promise. They'd been professional the night before, but were really letting loose at the show. Pretty girls were one perk to this job that he had to admit he would miss when he gave it up. Girls tended to flirt and fawn, and sometimes the promises weren't hollow and in fun. He picked up his towel and dried off some perspiration. There was a lot of the strong man show that was illusion, but enough of it was not that he got a good workout and limited his show times.
He heard a friendly bark from Bruiser, who was tied behind the stage. Bruiser's part in the show was at the beginning and he was usually content to be tethered until Fabian was finished. Fabian knew Bruiser couldn't see him yet and wondered what was going on. A soft female voice said, "Aren't you cute! In your little shirt! Who's a good boy?" Bruiser was not always friendly to strangers, so Fabian thought he'd better take a look. He peeked around the backstage wall to see Bruiser dancing from foot to foot on his chain, his jaw dropped in a wide doggy grin. Fabian saw her just as she knelt down.
"Oh, yes you are!" she said. "How cute are you?" She started scratching Bruiser, who whined, writhed, and wagged in doggy ecstasy. He rolled over, to Fabian's shock, and the young woman proceeded to scratch his belly. She must have had a magic touch, because Bruiser's foot was thumping a mile a minute. Fabian watched in fascination for a while, then cleared his throat. Bruiser leaped to his feet and faced Fabian with a happy bark. The young woman looked up and smiled.
"Your dog, I presume," she said.